Three Florida cities—Miami, Jacksonville, and Tampa—were ranked among the top ten in the nation for starting a business for 2024.
Three Florida cities—Miami, Jacksonville, and Tampa—were ranked among the top ten in the nation for starting a business in 2024, according to a USA Today and Blueprint analysis.
The report, which evaluated key metrics from 46 popular U.S. cities, including net establishment births, job creation rates, business entry and exit rates, startup employment, self-employment income, unemployment rates, and GDP growth deemed Miami to be the second-best city in the United States for starting a business. The city has about 7,350 more businesses opening than closing, according to the United States Census Bureau, indicating a strong entrepreneurial ecosystem.
Miami also leads in business entry rate and has the lowest unemployment rate as of January 2024. Additionally, 4.64 percent of Miami’s employment is in startups. However, Miami faces a challenge with the fifth-worst business exit rate, suggesting that while businesses are easily established, maintaining them long-term can be difficult.
“[Miami] ranks highest overall for net business openings and entry rates [and] also ranked best for unemployment numbers. However, it also has the fifth-worst exit rate, showing that sustaining a business over a long period of time might be a challenge,” the analysis states.
More broadly speaking, Miami surged into the top 30 global startup ecosystems in 2023, ranking 23rd due to a significant increase in ecosystem value and early-stage funding. The Miami-Fort Lauderdale metro area attracted $5.5 billion in venture capital across 423 agreements. The city’s success in the tech startup marketplace, fueled by embracing emerging technologies like cryptocurrency and Web3, has been highlighted, along with the presence of major tech startups like Insigneo Financial Group and Moonpay.
Jacksonville ranked seventh in the USA Today rankings, driven by its performance in net job creation rate, which indicates strong employment generation. The city also performs well in net business openings and has a favorable business entry rate. Jacksonville has a notable percentage of households reporting self-employment income at 14.41 percent.
Tampa, ranked tenth, offers a balanced environment for new enterprises, per the analysis. The city performs well in net business openings and has a strong startup ecosystem, with a significant percentage of its workforce employed in startups. Tampa’s entrepreneurial activity is further supported by a notable percentage of households with self-employment income at 12.51 percent.
The other cities featured in the top ten include Austin, Texas, which ranked first overall due to its high percentage of employment in startups and impressive GDP growth. Nashville, Tennessee, secured the third spot with strong job creation and self-employment income rates. Dallas, Texas, and Atlanta, Georgia, round out the top five, both ranking highly in net business openings and startup employment. Phoenix, Arizona, Raleigh, North Carolina, and Houston, Texas, also made the list.